The Pain Of Privilege (A Poor Man at the Gate Series Book 4)

by Andrew Wareham

  “It is possible to marry into the aristocracy of England, I believe, my lord. There is no law to prevent such a marriage being fully valid?”

  “The concept of the morganatic marriage does not exist in English law, sir; a marriage lawfully made and freely entered into must be wholly good. The eldest son of that marriage, for example, must take his father’s title on his death, except for Royalty, of course, they have their own law.”

  “So, my lord, to, as you say, ‘put our cards on the table’, is it?”

  “It is.”

  “Your son, Honourable Robert, will become Baron Andrews when you die and his first-born son would succeed him, yes?”

  “He is referred to as Honourable, but only in writing, never in speech, Mr Mostyn. He will succeed me as Lord Andrews – if he is successful in his life, quite possibly as Viscount rather than Baron. His wife will share his title, becoming Baroness or Viscountess on my death, retaining the title as Dowager on his decease.”

  “Miriam is an intelligent and well-educated girl and since she has grown up we have discussed the question of an arranged marriage with her. Was she to remain in Hamburg then she would come to know a dozen or so of Jewish boys and would, to an extent, take her pick of them – she is a rich prize – but she also has considered marriage to an English gentleman, unknown to her, but who would offer her respect and courtesy.”

  Tom answered the unspoken question.

  “Robert would show her public esteem and would behave as a good man should in private. I know him sufficiently well to have no doubt of that, sir.”

  “Good! My reports of him say that he is a respectable young man – he has a mistress in keeping who has had nothing but good to say of him, not knowing that she was doing more than gossip with a neighbour, I would add. He would, of course, be quite at liberty to keep his young lady, in the same discretion that he currently employs. I would be willing to make a substantial cash payment on the occasion of his marriage, my lord.”

  Tom shook his head, having considered the matter very carefully over the previous weeks.

  “I had rather that you settled whatever sum seems good to you on your daughter, written in trust so that the income is hers and would be inherited by the younger children, and made as well an investment in the family’s businesses, taking a share of the profits, of course. You might wish to settle those sums on Robert’s heir, for example. I would not wish the young man to be tempted to a life of indolence, living on his riches accrued at marriage.”

  Mostyn raised an eyebrow, made no commitment, no doubt wishing to consult an English lawyer on the matter of Trusts and the rights of a married woman to own a personal income – an alien concept to him.

  They met again three days later, Mostyn suggesting that he should settle an income of five thousands on his daughter, another one hundred thousand to be made available for investment at the Andrews’ discretion. Robert, formally consulted for the first time although aware of all that was happening, was much in favour – he had heard that both East India and West India Companies were considering extensions to their respective docks in London and Bristol, intending to build in another three or four years when the current downturn in trade should be over. An immediate purchase of land adjacent to their current wharves could be highly profitable. Mostyn was impressed by the young man’s perspicacity.

  The Cavendishes ball opened the Season, as ever, and the Stars and Andrews were present, the Stars introducing themselves and two of their sons and their elder unmarried daughter, the Andrews displaying their military son, his missing fingers occasioning a little comment to the effect that he was clearly as valorous as his father – the line bred true, it would seem. It was noticed that Miss Andrews was very comfortable in Captain Star’s company and, whilst that might be regretted by the mothers of impecunious young gentlemen, it was seen to be both natural and desirable that the close ties between the families should be strengthened. The dowagers scanned the Society columns, awaiting the announcement.

  Verity, increasingly tired and showing somewhat pale, lacked the energy to fight the inevitable; Tom, used to her as a pillar of strength, did not notice at first that there was anything wrong then put it down to fatigue – the Season was demanding with its incessant social round and the behind the scenes organisation thrust upon the womenfolk.

  Book Four: A Poor Man

  at the Gate Series

  Chapter Two

  Before the Season ended in May, Verity had to admit to herself that she was unwell, though able to conceal the depth of her tiredness from Tom, passing it off as something normal that he had not noticed in the past. She had been equally tired last year, she said, and this year she had been watching her weight as well. He agreed that he had not really considered just how much she had to do behind the scenes, organising their activities as well as overseeing the Stars this year.

  Matthew Star and Charlotte were in each other’s company every day, much to her satisfaction. Matthew seemed to be happier as well, burying his demons, his brother’s death easing away from the front of his mind. Verity had no liking for the match still, but she lacked the energy to oppose it.

  On a rarely bright spring morning she took her maid – Nurse long retired to potter in a cottage on the estate – and went to consult with Sir William Knighton in Harley Street, preferring to visit him rather than let Tom be aware that he had called. He was amongst the most fashionable of doctors, was sufficiently fallible to have endorsed the use of magnetism for the cure of many ailments but was generally regarded as being able to make an accurate diagnosis of most conditions. As Verity was aware, recognising an illness was a long way from being able to cure it, but she wished to have her mind set at rest, it would be better to know than to fear. Sir William’s chief rival in the field of fashionable medicine, Sir Henry Halford, the ‘Eel-Backed Baronet’, although a master of courtesy and renowned for his supple bow, was unfortunately likely to tell a patient exactly what he or she wanted to hear, had been known to assure an earl on his deathbed that he would be riding to hounds next day. Verity preferred to discover the truth, though only from a suitably socially acceptable source, not from some mere Scotsman who was as likely as not to dirty his hands with the poor.

  Sir William asked his questions, made his examination, apologising for its necessarily intrusive nature, begged her to sit and compose herself, to take tea or a glass of wine perhaps.

  “Neither, thank you, sir. What have you to tell me?”

  “Nothing that is good, my lady. There is, I am sorry to say, a growth, a tumour, which will necessarily have a fatal result. There is nothing that I can offer that may serve to cure or palliate or even slow the progress of the cancer, ma’am. Any operation would certainly be immediately fatal – it is, as I am sure you know, effectively impossible to enter the abdomen surgically – infection will always supervene even if the bleeding can be stopped sufficiently for the patient to leave the table. The pain as well would be intolerable. All that I can offer, my lady, is laudanum.”

  Verity nodded slowly, controlling herself as well as she could.

  “How long, Sir William?”

  “The tumour is in advanced condition, ma’am. You have been aware of it for some time, I presume?”

  “Two or three months, sir. I had put the discomfort down to my age, an early change, you know.”

  “Quite rapid then, my lady.” Sir William shook his head, took a deep breath, a little too theatrically for Verity’s taste. “I doubt, ma’am, that you will survive the year. I am sorry to be so blunt, but I have come to believe that it is dishonest to offer a hope that is truly unreal. You have not yet informed Lord Andrews, I presume?”

  “Not yet, sir.”

  “I believe that you should do so within a very few weeks, ma’am.”

  She agreed, promised to delay only until the Season was over and they had returned to Northamptonshire.

  “I will write a full letter for your local practitioner, ma’am, will deliver it to
you in Mount Street tomorrow. For the while, rest all you can, my lady, and be ready to take the laudanum at least in quantity sufficient to give you a night’s sleep. I will prescribe a tonic of my own devising that may help a little with your general well-being and may maintain your bodily strength a while longer, and you should take pains to eat a healthy, invigorating diet, taking less of red meats and more of fowl, if it be possible.” Sir William grimaced, another of his well-practiced mannerisms. “There will be other effects of taking such large doses of laudanum, of course, my lady, but I would recommend you to accept them.”

  She was to become an opium-eater, she realised, if the good doctor was to have his way. Not, perhaps, a desirable way to end her days – her dignity demanded better of her, she could tolerate a little of pain, she believed.

  Matthew Star paid Tom a visit, semi-formally enquired whether he would have any objection to his betrothal to Miss Andrews, if she should be willing. He would not make an actual application for her hand, he said, until he had sorted out his own affairs, made some sort of decision about his future.

  “I would welcome you as a son, Captain Star, and not merely for the love I bear your father – your own actions have shown you to be a worthy man indeed! For your future, well, I may be able to assist there. Had you considered becoming a member? There are seats available, though only, I fear, in the Tory interest! A post in the Admiralty could always be arranged. If, for good enough reason, the naval existence is no more for you, then a position in another department, or a farm would always be possible.” A thought suddenly struck him. “If it seemed good to you to engage in business, Roberts Iron Founders has recently purchased a shipyard near Liverpool and is to produce steam vessels, with iron hulls – a professional eye would be valuable, I suspect.”

  Matthew was immediately interested – he had heard rumours about the steam kettles for years and in common with virtually every other officer in the navy had dismissed them as some sort of Froggish fantasy; the concept of iron hulls as well was fascinating. As for lowering himself by entering the world of business, with his parentage that was no problem he assured Tom, and he would be very willing to discuss the matter further.

  “Mr Fraser, our engineer, is currently in charge of the new yard, and of the production and further development of our steam engines, and of the iron foundries, and has a role in the coal pits, and is still tutoring Mr Joseph Andrews. He is, as you will gather, a very busy young man, one who requires at least twenty-five hours of every day. Were you to take over, say the designing of the hulls in the first instance, adding more functions as you became experienced in them and, as well, sailing the first ships for a few days or weeks until you had learnt their behaviour and found how better to design the next, then you might save him from collapse.”

  “Had you considered, my lord, that I have no education at all in the field of steam, and very little knowledge of how ships are built?”

  Tom laughed.

  “Who could teach you how to build an iron-hulled steamship, Captain Star?”

  Matthew thought a few seconds, smiled in return – there was no pool of knowledge to draw upon, the whole process would be an experiment, a series of them indeed, trial and error. The smile faded as he realised that ships’ crews would pay, possibly with their lives, for any errors he made. Did he want that burden?

  Fifteen years of the navy, almost all in wartime, answered the question by posing another. Who could do the job better than him?

  “I would wish, obviously, to confer with my father, my lord, but assuming his assent I would be very pleased to join the yard. A political career is not for me, I think – to be quite honest, my lord, I know very little of the problems of governance of this country, and care somewhat less! The navy in peacetime will have some excitements – there are, as we know only too well, always pirates, and slavers still to chase – but the routine will often be very dull, possibly for years on end – and whilst I enjoy the sea, I cannot live a life of examining the polish on the brass work! So, if farming does not appeal – and a few days staying with brother Bob in the peace suggested it was not my life – a career in business makes the best of good sense.”

  “Good. The salary would not be ungenerous, of course, and Charlotte’s income would not be small, and you have a little of prize-money as well, I doubt not, so the mundane problems need not concern us. What does worry me is the reaction of Lady Verity – she has great ambitions for her children – what mother has not? She had hoped to marry Robert into the ranks of the high aristocracy, but there is about to be an announcement made that will end that ambition – he is to wed Miss Mostyn.”

  Matthew, whose knowledge of Society was in any case limited, cast about in his mind, was unable to place the name.

  “Her father is a banker who has just this week supervised the shipment into the Pool of a vast weight of gold and silver specie and of a ton of paper. He has transferred his whole business and all of his portable wealth from Hamburg to London. A round dozen of clerks and their families as well, but that was also necessary, he could not run his bank without their knowledge, it would take far too long to train up their replacements. His name previously does not concern us, except to say that it was quite clearly Jewish – and hence, unacceptable in the short run in the salons of Mayfair. Will that be a problem to you, Captain Star?”

  Matthew had never to his knowledge met a Jew – they were not to be found in naval wardrooms, officially because of the Test Acts which demanded the swearing of oaths on the King James Bible, practically because the Jewish middle-class community in England was still tiny. He said so, commented that to the best of his knowledge they tended not to have horns and tails and that he was really not too concerned one way or the other.

  “Good! I must arrange for you to meet the family – we shall be taking tea with them later in the week, a morning call. Will you come with us, escorting Charlotte, and making yourself known to them as a future member of the clan?”

  The Season came to its end, the marriage contracts of the two eldest Andrews gazetted in the final days before they left for Thingdon Hall, effectively forestalling enquiries and gossip about the unknown Miss Mostyn, she with the suspicious ‘Christian’ name of Miriam.

  On reaching the estate they found that there was near uproar in the villages, civil war threatened. Tom, given the word by the butler in evening, was buttonholed by Quillerson the instant he left the breakfast table.

  “It’s the chapel, my lord, all brought to a head by White the blacksmith – he is going and so has decided he need placate his neighbours no longer. We now have no fewer than four chapels, my lord, and none of them in converse with the others!”

  “Thank you, Quillerson! We do not want that in this time of economic unrest – we have a sufficiency of farm-labourers rioting in the country to need no other form of trouble. What does Reverend Harker say?”

  “Very little, my lord – none of his flock have defected, it would seem. The tale is, my lord, that White stood in chapel after service, as was his right, to denounce the shortcomings he perceived in their organisation and behaviour. Mr Nugent tried to silence him, publicly threatening him with their equivalent of excommunication, a thing which he was generally perceived to have no right to do.”

  “And so, I presume, Mr White marched out, followed those who saw him as in the right?”

  “Just so, my lord, and they built their own shed to serve as a meeting hall, little more than a wooden lean-to at first but now being extended in brick. ‘Primitive Methodists’, they call themselves, having returned to the original simplicity and purity of the first chapels, but it would seem they were not quite thorough enough in their return to their basics as a round dozen built another shed for the ‘Original Methodists’ and then a third group split away to join with some who they call ‘Baptists’ – they believing, it would seem, that christening should take place as an adult, not be performed on babies. They are, quite naturally, demonstrating their love for the gentle J
esus by indulging in insult, stone-throwing and occasional fisticuffs when their paths cross.”

  “How pleasing! Have you passed the word, very quietly, that actual conflict will not be tolerated? You might wish to suggest that any violent outburst, though it may start in Finedon, will end in Botany Bay!”

  An unwelcome thought struck Tom – he had a vague memory of hearing that the more extreme sectarians were known for their hatred of Jews, the ‘killers of Christ’, he understood. He asked Quillerson to find out if there were any such ranters in Finedon, mentioning to him the prospective spouses of his elder children.

  “Captain Star, my lord? He will be much approved of in the village – the navy being very popular, England’s Bulwark and all that. Miss Mostyn? Better, if you will forgive my presumption, my lord, that she should be Scottish.”

  “She will live mostly in London, I suspect, Quillerson, where her father has set up his bank, which will be very large indeed – he was a leading figure in the German states and has removed the whole of his business to England.”

  “Do we need foreigners, my lord, to take ownership of our lands and money?”

  Tom sighed, condescended so far as to explain that gold had no nationality, and that a coal-mine or shipyard or manufactury built in England employed English workers and produced its wealth in English guineas, to be spent in England.

  “Not that ‘guineas’ will be the correct term any longer – we must get used to sovereigns, Quillerson.”

  “We have been counting in pounds for a century now, my lord, it is perhaps about time that we used coins of one pound value rather than the guinea of twenty-one shillings!”

  Both agreed that the change was necessary and overdue, both regretted it.

  “What of a reverend gentleman to accompany our emigrants, Quillerson?”